TIM leads mobile growth in Nov/10 and the difference from Claro drops to 1.26 million cellulars

TIM led cellular growth for the 4th consecutive month with net adds of 1,234 thousand mobile accesses in Nov/10.

By this result, the difference which separates TIM (3rd in the market share ranking in Brazil) from Claro (2nd) fell to 1,255 thousand mobile accesses in November.

Kept this trend, TIM is likely to overtake Claro in market share in the first quarter of 2011 (1Q11).

TIM’s growth happens mainly in prepaid segment, in which the company offers local and long distance calls to other TIM’s cell phones for R$0.25 by call (Plano Infinity). TIM overtook Claro’s prepaid market share in Sep/10.

Claro showed some reaction in October, but the difference between both companies dropped again in November. December will be decisive in this competition (more details). Claro improved its performance in postpaid, leading net adds in this segment along the last two months.

Vivo, which led cellular growth along the first five months of the year, reduced its growth pace in the second semester and watched its market share to drop below 30% (29.8%) in Nov/10 and lost the leadership in accumulated net adds (along the year) to TIM.

In Nov/10, Vivo (holding net adds of 460 thousand mobile accesses) was surpassed by Oi (659 thousand cellulars) which resumed growth to the same levels as other operators’ net adds.

Brazil ended Nov/10 counting 197.5 million mobile accesses and density reached 101,96 cell./100 inhab.. Net adds of 3,095 thousand cellulars are the biggest registered in along the year and represented a new record break for the month of November.

This result was encouraged by the fight between TIM and Claro for the second position in mobile market share ranking in Brazil and by Oi’s performance (the best since May/09).